Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. I own nothing of it and am only playing in this wonderful world Monty gave us.
This is only about a month late. Had a four day intestinal bug over the New Years weekend...great way to start the year, then followed that up with a cold. Not a lot got written and I completely lost the feel for the 3500 or so words I did have so I deleted most of it and started over. It doesn't help that I've been more tired than usual since that bug I had so progress has been really slow.
I have no idea if this is really any good or not due to the troubles I've had along the way. I would have abandoned it entirely but since I had already done fics for Ruby, Weiss and Blake, I felt I had to actually finish this one. Hope it actually gets some traffic, the other three have gotten very little. (Although the Ruby story has gotten twice the traffic of the other two combined.)
Oh well, it will get what it gets. Hope somebody likes it and I hope to see some feedback.
Reignited
The air was warm and the night sky clear over the city of Mistral. It was late enough that most people had retired for the night some time ago, although down in the lower levels it was like the city never slept with its all night clubs and markets and the never ending stream of activity associated with Remnant's largest black market in operation. On the higher levels it was quiet with just the gentle night breeze stirring.
In the yard of a borrowed house, Yang Xiao Long, dressed in black pants and an orange crop top, sat astride the retaining wall between the house and the sheer drop off down the mountain. Her right foot was on solid ground while her left leg swayed lazily over the open side and there was an almost serene look of contemplation on her face. It was definitely a look that most would find foreign on her but that was how it was these days when she had the chance to just quietly sit by herself away from the buzz of everything around her.
That in itself was a major shift, being loud and boisterous was what she was known for and she still was, but now she found value in moments of quiet thought. Actually it was more than just value, it was a need and she wasn't entirely sure just how she should feel about that. There were a lot of things these days that she wasn't quite sure how she should feel about. Whether it happened in split seconds or over the course of months, it was kind of amazing how things could change. Not always for the better though and not always easily.
It had only taken a split second for her to come to Blake's aid and launch into that reckless attack. A split second to lose her arm. A split second for her to lose that air of invincibility and then spend months wallowing in depression and self pity, wracked with nightmares and self doubt and anger.
The moment she awoke in the hospital and found herself staring at a bandaged stump where her right arm should be, it was like a black hole had opened up beneath her, slowly sucking the life and the hope out of her. Penny and Pyrrha were dead. Weiss's father had forced her to go back to Atlas. Ruby was unconscious in another room down the hall and she didn't know why. Blake...rather than staying and being their for her as her partner and as her friend did what she seemed to be all too good at. She ran away without so much as a word. The anger she felt from the sense of betrayal was what kept her from completely giving up. But, it also prevented her from thinking rationally, kept her from even trying to deal with her new reality and it prolonged her bitterness and pain.
Every moment of every day was a reminder of what she had lost. Time went by without notice so she didn't really know how many days or weeks it was that she continued to feel the despair and the sharp pain of her wound. She was continuously making movements and gestures that had previously required no thought and had been routine, only to now, frustratingly, see a bandaged stump waving about uselessly. The worst thing had been the time she stumbled coming back from the bathroom and on instinct thrust her arms forward to break her fall only to ram her still healing stump, and her face, into the floor. She had curled up into a ball, screaming and crying on the floor and barely aware of her father trying to calm her down and just holding her until she mercifully cried herself out.
It would be one of the few times where she got any sleep that wasn't interrupted by nightmares. Sometimes it was just flashes of things that startled her awake. Blake screaming. The hate filled eyes of Adam Taurus and flash of his red sword blade coming at her. The feeling of the moment that sword sliced through her arm. Other times it was the whole sequence of events from the time she went looking for Blake until she lost her arm. Those were usually the worst, sending her back to the waking world screaming in terror. They exhausted her and stripped her of any shreds of resolve she had managed to try and pull together.
She kept falling ever deeper into her despair and self pity. She tried to find scapegoats to blame her loss on but she knew all too well that it was her own reckless attack that had cost her, yet it never really seemed to dawn on her that the situation could have been so much worse. He could have carved her up even worse and left her alive or he could have just killed her outright. All she could think about was what she no longer had and who was no longer by her side. It was the constant cycle of thoughts that played on an endless loop in her mind, driving her farther and farther down. It wasn't just Blake who had left her. Her own mother had left, then Summer left and she was all alone trying to raise Ruby like she was her mother while their father struggled to pull himself together. Even Ruby had left, taking off on some grand adventure while she was left there alone and suffering.
And that was when it all hit the wall and came to a full stop. Was she really going to do that? Was she really going to use Ruby as a sobbing point for her misery and self pity? Was she really going to blame her for any of this misery she was feeling? She hadn't even thought about it since that day, but as soon as she was able after awakening from her own ordeal Ruby had come to her. All she wanted to do was to try and be there for her, to do whatever she could for the big sister that had always done so much for her. And what did she do? She snarled at her when she mentioned Blake, she told her that she wanted to be alone, and when Ruby told her that she loved her she just stared out the window and said nothing. It must have broken Ruby's heart.
Ruby meant more to her than anything in this world and she had pushed her aside in her misery and wouldn't let her near. Now she was on her way to Mistral with the remains of Team JNPR to try and find whatever information she could on the people that had brought about the downfall of Beacon and she wasn't with her. She had repeatedly promised Ruby that she would always be at her side but there she sat wallowing in her own self pity and Ruby was out there somewhere and she didn't know if she was alive or dead. Why couldn't she have said she loved her too? If anything happened to Ruby it would kill her. She'd never be able to live with herself if she lost her because she couldn't say those words that always came so easily before.
From that point on she was able to start shedding the self pity and began to actually try and function on a day to day basis, getting out of her room and doing what she could around the house. Things were better but she was still just going through the motions with no real direction. However she also found that she was becoming a bit jumpy, sudden or loud noises startled her and sent a shot of fear through her and every now and then she would have a flashback and find herself backed up against the furniture and gasping for breath. Even the Grimm hadn't been able to scare her like that and now she was jumping at shadows.
She hated feeling the way she did, she felt helpless and useless. She knew she should be trying to do something, but she didn't know just exactly what. She didn't know where to turn or what to do. An answer came the day her father brought home the package from Atlas but it was an answer she couldn't deal with. She hadn't exactly been lying when she begged off trying it on by claiming she wasn't feeling well. The sight of it made her feel like she was going to throw up, the exact same feeling she had when she woke up in the hospital to see that her arm was gone.
She felt bad, she had seen the look on her father's face. He had been excited to bring her the arm and she knew that he had hoped that seeing it would give her some hope, that she would see it as part of her recovery and be able to start moving forward again. He had been trying so hard. He looked after her and put up with her silence and her moods. He did his best to try and cheer her up and prod her along without pushing too hard. She knew that he was there to listen if she finally decided to talk.
As the days went on he didn't even mention the arm again, but the day after it arrived it appeared on the top of her dresser next to her remaining gauntlet. It was a silent message that he couldn't make her put it on and that he wouldn't. If she did or not was a decision she was going to have to make for herself. At times she refused to look at it, as if not doing so would make it go away. Other times she sat on her bed and stared at it trying to think her way through why she wouldn't put it on and why she should.
The answer came down to fear. Fear of being vulnerable, she no longer carried the feeling of invincibility and it drained her of her confidence. Fear of trying, fear of failing. Fear of not being able to fight her way through this fear and do what needed to be done. Fear that in a fight she would freeze up now and get hurt again or that someone else would get hurt because of it. There were so many things...or maybe they were all the same thing...she didn't even know if she could tell them apart.
The night Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck were visiting was the first time she had been able to speak of and admit to that fear to anyone other than herself. Somehow it had never occurred to her that veteran Huntsmen like them would have fears, no one was truly fearless and anyone that claimed to be was either a liar or a fool. Or both. Fear was normal and it was how you handled it and dealt with it that was what made all the difference. You could either let it control you or you could use it. When they departed that night she felt better than she had in a long time, but there was one last thing that proved to be the turning point for her. It was when they asked her father if he had considering going after Ruby and bringing her home. He hadn't because he needed to stay and look after her.
She already felt responsible for pushing Ruby away and into her trip to Mistral, and because she had chosen to nearly drown in her own self pity and misery she had kept him from bringing her home. She wasn't happy with herself and it was a fitful night of sleep, but when morning came she didn't hesitate to finally put on the arm and the moment she did she wondered why in the hell she had waited so long. She felt like such an idiot. She had wasted so much time trapped inside her own head and feeling sorry for herself. Yeah, she had lost an arm and she knew that the way she looked at her own life and life in general had now changed. But she was still alive, she could still be a Huntress, and she could still go stand at her sister's side and watch her back. It was long past time that she finally got off her ass.
She threw herself into the training with her dad and everyday she felt more and more of her old self coming back. She was finally accepting and coming to terms with her new reality and for the first time in months she no longer felt so broken. She wasn't whole by any means and she knew she still had a long way to go but she was getting there. But as soon as she was able to she was going to go find her little sister. As she got stronger and felt better about herself, she worried more and more about Ruby and it became harder to not just go before she was ready.
When she did go things hadn't really gone the way she expected at her mother's encampment, but then again she hadn't really known what to expect. She had spent a lot of time thinking about that as she made her way to Mistral. She certainly hadn't been expecting a loving reunion nor had she wanted one. For as long as she had wondered and wanted to find her mother and get some answers out of her, that was secondary to getting to Ruby and whether she liked it or not Raven Branwen represented the fastest way to accomplish that.
People liked to think that she was all boobs and blonde hair and little else, but she wasn't stupid and it didn't take long to start and form an opinion on her mother's nature. The back and forth between them after she got into the camp only strengthened what she was thinking before and her opinion certainly didn't rise much when she initially refused to help. The way she seemed to get a sour look on her face when she mentioned Ruby didn't help much either and she couldn't help but wonder if Raven had something against Summer and thus Ruby by extension.
Knock that opinion down another notch when she saw Weiss being held prisoner. Though it was a little amusing to see the usually spotless girl covered in dirt and grime, at least until she realized that some of those dark splotches on her skin were actually bruises. It had been rather shocking when Weiss literally threw herself at her, looping her arms around her neck, her feet then barely scraping the ground and tearfully confessing 'I missed you so much!'. She had missed her too and hadn't really realized just how much until that particular moment.
When they joined Raven for her big reveal of everything they didn't know, her opinion of the woman dropped even further. She actually told them very little. Mostly she laid blame at the feet of others and dropped any other explanations they were likely to want or need right in Qrow's lap. The conclusions she was coming to about Raven were infuriating her and that overflowed when the woman badmouthed her father. Even when she revealed her bird form to them she didn't care, she was beyond caring about anything else she had to say. She would talk to Qrow and get his side of things and she suspected that even if he was keeping things from her and everyone else, his story would be a lot closer to the truth than what she got from Raven. Done with the crap, she couldn't get herself and Weiss away from there fast enough and get to Ruby.
She looked up at the house and to the window of the room where her sister was sleeping. Her stomach had been full of butterflies when she had entered the house and her heart began to beat a mile a minute when she heard Ruby's voice coming from the kitchen after Qrow called for her. She almost started crying when she saw her walk in carrying the tea set. She had grown and the changes in her outfit reflected that. She kind of expected Ruby to drop the tea set when she saw her but what she hadn't expected was the panicked, almost fearful look that came to her silver eyes.
The familiar gestures were all there. The partial turn as she took a step back, her hands coming up to her chest. She was protectively closing in on herself. She looked like she was ready to flee for her life. It felt like her heart was breaking and it nearly did as she heard the tears in Ruby's voice as she began to try and apologize to her. To apologize for something that wasn't her fault. The real hammer blow however was when she said, 'I wasn't sure if you wanted me around.'
She knew how Ruby thought and how her emotions worked and she knew exactly how much Ruby loved her and looked up to her. How badly had she hurt her by turning her away like she had? She had been carrying that inside of her for all of these months along with everything else that had to be weighing on her. She knew that Ruby always tried to put other people's feelings ahead of her own so she knew that she would have put her own feelings in a little corner somewhere so she didn't burden her friends with them as they travelled. She knew that she was a mess back then but the thought of using that as an excuse for hurting the person she loved most in this world made her feel sick. She rushed to her sister and wrapped her arms around her, saying the words she should have said all those months ago.
'I love you.'
'I love you too.'
She raised her left hand and felt an ever so slight tremor in it. She had nearly made a new mess this morning as she sat outside with Ruby and Weiss having coffee. When they mentioned Blake she lost her cool, snapping at them and even having her eyes turn red as she glared at them. She couldn't forgive herself for that, nor for the fact that rather than cooling down and apologizing, she had got up and left.
At least she had managed to keep them from seeing her hand start to shake and she knew that wasn't something she'd be able to keep hidden for long, not if it was going to happen every time she felt stressed or felt scared. Truth was, she was feeling scared a lot these days, it was something she hadn't been able to completely shake off before she left home. She supposed that only time and getting used to being back in action would ease that. She hoped.
It was probably a good thing that it had been Weiss that came and found her instead of Ruby. If she had told Ruby what she told Weiss then she knew her sister would have blamed herself because she had left her too. Knowing Ruby, deep down she probably still did. She had been shocked to hear what Weiss told her about her own family. Stupidly it had never dawned on her that things in the Schnee household could be anything but idyllic.
She supposed that Weiss was right too about everything she had said regarding Blake. She had been too wrapped up in her anger and her own hurt to really have looked at it from Blake's perspective. She understood that she would be afraid that something from her past would come back and hurt people she cared about, but she had a harder time understanding why Blake would run because of it. If Adam Taurus wanted to hurt people she cared about in order to get at her, it wasn't going to matter if Blake was near them or not. If anything they would be safer together as a group and they certainly weren't going to hold his actions against her. They all cared about her and only wanted to help her. Why couldn't she just let them?
She could see things now a little better from Blake's point of view, but it was going to take a little more than that to stop being angry and let go of the bitterness she had been harbouring for months now. She still felt too hurt by her leaving. She had never told anyone what she told Weiss. She had a little better understanding now of why Raven left but it didn't make it sting any less, and she knew it wasn't fair to blame Summer for leaving her, she hadn't left her life, she'd been taken from it. And while she would not hesitate to do it all over again, it had been hard and lonely looking after Ruby. Even after their father finally pulled himself back together she seemed to do more of the actual parenting.
Things got better as Ruby got older but no one at her age at the time should have been left with that level of responsibility for another person and she had missed a significant part of her own childhood in the process. But she was so proud of how Ruby turned out. Just as proud as she was now after being separated for months. She hadn't heard all of the stories of her travels but she had heard a couple. She glanced back up at the room and had to wonder just when it was that Ruby had become her hero.
She had meant what she told Qrow and Ozpin...Oscar...man, if that wasn't a mind bender, when she said that if Ruby was in, she would follow her lead. She was scared, how could she not be after all of the things they had been told, but it didn't matter how scared she was she was not going to let that keep her from having Ruby's back. She would go wherever Ruby went even if it was straight through the gates of hell. By the looks of it the others would too and it made her feel a little bit in awe that her little sister seemed to have the knack to get people to follow her.
She didn't know what sorts of things they would be facing and she didn't know how she would react to them when they came, she could only hope that a shaking arm was the worst of it. And she had no idea what would happen if, or when according to Weiss and Ruby, they met up with Blake again. Before this morning a punch in the face or angry yelling seemed like the most likely scenario, but that had been tempered somewhat after talking to Weiss. She really didn't know how she would react now and she supposed it would do her no good to worry about it until the time came.
She looked up at the moon and took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air. The fire that Adam Taurus had snuffed out was now reignited. It wasn't burning fully yet, it was still building and wasn't yet what it had once been. Honestly, she couldn't say if it ever would be the same but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It would take time and she still had to shake off the rust of her long inactivity. Sparring could only take her so far. It would take a while to get back into the same shape she had been in before...and get even better, and only real fights were going to show her if she could really still do this, if she could face another human or Faunus enemy and not wilt under the stress.
But she was going to try which was a far cry from her feelings of a few months ago when she had all but given up completely. She was back with Ruby and Weiss was with them too. So was Jaune and Ren and Nora, and Uncle Qrow and mini Ozpin and there were some serious bad guys in need of a beat down.
"On step at a time," she said to the moon. That was the only way forward to continue building that fire and while it might be slow and even painful, at least it was moving forward and not falling back into despair and anger. She had enough of that.
As for Blake Belladonna, well, that was a bridge she'd have to cross when she got to it.
I have an idea ready to write for a Raven one shot. I know, I should be working on Lonely Exile, but I am having a bit of trouble with exactly where to take it and how to get it there. I should also be working on A Chance Encounter too...same trouble with it in a way.
Oh well, I'll get to whatever grabs my attention.